Some rejected titles were, “It’s A Not-So-Wonderful Elbow, Andrew Bailey,” “Old Man Potter Gets The Last Laugh” and “Won’t You Come Home, Andrew Bailey? Won’t You Come Home?” but when presented with a Party of Five reference, I turn to mush. If you can wash Po5 out of your hair, you’re a better man than me. Andrew Bailey is heading off to see Dr. Freeze, and there’s the reason why Craig Breslow was closing on Monday. Here I thought he won a game of “Whoever’s Name Sounds Most Like A Character From Family Matters Is The Closer.” I’d grab Breslow in all leagues. If you can, I’d grab Wuertz too. That’s what she said! Anyway, here’s what else I saw yesterday in fantasy baseball:

Psyche! Before I get into the roundup, fantasy basketball leagues are signing up over at our sister (brother?) site. Head over there if that’s your thing. Anyway II, here’s the roundup:

Trevor Cahill – 8 IP, 2 ER, 7 baserunners, 7 Ks and his 17th win to go along with a 2.81 ERA on the year. I will now fall on my sword.

Joe Mauer – MRI showed he has tissue inflammation. That’s what my jeans had in the 8th grade. Sometimes they had socks inflammation. Wait, what? So Mauer’s not coming back for at least 5 days. Then he’s not going to play every day the week before the playoffs. I’d look elsewhere.

Joey Votto – Member when I said Dusty would start sitting Votto? Well, Votto came down with a mysterious sinus infection and missed yesterday’s game. At least it’s not a concussion, Canadians can’t handle those.

Jair Jurrjens – Has a tear in his right knee, but he might be able to make his next start. That’s nice, but Jar-Jar’s not a great start anyway.

Gaby Sanchez – 3-for-4, 3 RBIs with his 19th homer. Behind the scenes at Razzball HQ, October Grey has started to compile the recap of all the top 20 lists that he’ll post when the season ends. I mention this because Gaby’s ending up much higher than I would’ve thought. Listen (or read, which is probably easier), Gaby hasn’t been terrible, but, really, he’s just been a prime-of-his-career Lyle Overbay. It’s a’ight. Emphasis on ight.

Hanley Ramirez – Returned and went 1-for-4. In a pregame press conference, he said, “I’m sick of people saying I don’t want to play. Speaking of which, how many friggin’ games are left?”

Mike Pelfrey – 7 IP, 1 ER, 5 baserunners, 4 Ks. Solid game from Pelfrey but he gets the Phils next at Citizens Flank. As they say in Italy, thatta no good.

Mike Aviles – 3-for-6, 3 RBIs. Where have I heard his name before? Oh, I know! I wrote it yesterday.

Billy Butler – 3-for-4 and, because he loves to be overrated, he’s hitting near .400 this month. He loves it almost as much as he loves going to 2nd base on himself.

Justin Upton – There’s talk he’ll be shutdown. I say do it and stop giving his fantasy owners hope, but these aren’t decisions where I’m usually included.

Kelly Johnson – 1-for-4, 2 RBIs and his 23rd homer. Sure, he didn’t stay as crazy hot as he was in April, but what other site was even talking about this guy in January?

Paul Maholm – 7 IP, 2 ER, 7 baserunners, 4 Ks. He gets the Astros next, a team he has a 1.99 ERA against in 22 2/3 IP this year. He’ll probably be in Thursday’s borderline starters post with some serious caveats.

Travis Snider – Hit his 10th homer yesterday. Would it surprise anyone if I said I’m going to be excited about Snider again next year? It shouldn’t. Especially not now.

Hunter Pence – Left yesterday’s game with hip discomfort, or as they call them in old age homes a “What else is new.”

Chris Johnson – 3-for-4 with his 2nd homer in 3 games. He’s also batting near-.400 in the last week. Yup.

Tyler Clippard – Recorded his 10th win, i.e. except in Teixeira, that’s the same amount of wins as Dan Haren. God, wins are stupid.

Freddie Freeman – Hit his first major league homer yesterday. He’s not worth going near in redraft leagues, but I’m still excited about him for next year and in keepers.

Clayton Richard – 9 IP, 0 ER, 10 baserunners, 6 Ks. Sonavabench! He had a 4.85 road ERA going into yesterday’s game. He wasn’t supposed to pitch a complete game shutout. Dodgers can’t even suck at the right times.

Scott Baker – 5 IP, 1 ER, 5 baserunners, 7 Ks. Gets the Royals next, which seems like a good matchup on paper. Too bad they’re not playing Strat-O-Matic. Half of me wants to believe Baker wants to pitch well and beat the Royals so he secures his spot in the playoff rotation. The top half of me thinks the Twins will be snoozing through the next week of games.

Fausto Carmona – 5 2/3 IP, 2 ER, 8 baserunners, 3 Ks. Has around a one and a half ERA in September and gets the Royals and White Sox to close out the year. Nice and not bad, respectively.

Carlos Zambrano – 6 IP, 0 ER, 8 baserunners, 8 Ks. Should get the Cards and Astros in his final two starts. Not to put too fine a point on it, but I’d put Big Z in my bonnet.

Jake Westbrook – 4 IP, 5 ER vs. the Pirates. Madonna mia, the Cards are tanking. Westbrook gets the Cubs and Rockies in his last two starts. I wouldn’t trust him in most leagues unless you need to gamble on not being whammied.

Felipe Lopez – The Cards dropped him after he arrived late for Monday’s game. As opposed to fellow MI Brendan Ryan who hustled to the ballpark 4 hours before the game for extra batting practice and to make Albert his plantain-flavored protein shake.

Josh Hamilton – Hamilton says he hopes to return next week (yeah, sure) even after the Rangers found two fractured ribs yesterday. Okay, a few things come to mind. Don’t you think right after Hamilton says he feels sore they’d send him for tests and find something like fractured ribs? It’s not like this is the 1890’s and they’re using a cauterizing iron. Is his doctor, Dr. Nick Riviera? Or are there some arcane MLBPA rules that restricts doctors to 5 pokes a day? And they didn’t find the fractured ribs until the 15th day of poking?

First, why do you suggest picking up Breslow over Wuertz? Isn’t it a good rule to go for the righty when the situation isn’t clear?

Also, apropos to your post yesterday about ignoring pedigree in the final days of the season, would you rather have a hot hand like Casper Wells or Dyson over Franklin Gutierrez, who seems to be playing better?

And lastly, will EY Jr. get enough at-bats over the final games to make him a better choice than Scott Sizemore, Rhymes, Ellis, or Herrera?

I’ve been in a real battle for third in this 20-team roto league and am starting to pull away from the pack and threaten second thanks in part to Razzball advice. Razzvice?

exactly what i was thinking on hamilton grey, thanks alot rangers, for an entire week i let hamilton sit there when i coulda dropped him and picked up someone else… AWESOME, that POSSIBLY coulda won my matchup and put me in the finals.

HOW THE EFFF can they not know he’s got broken ribs!? Seriously!?!!? Get a damn xray!

Is there anything you can do to make Teixeira stop playing like a girl?

On a more serious note, I’m not sure that he’ll get a hit for the rest of the season. I’m in a tight race (1 point lead) for first in my league and production in HR, RBI and Runs in the last two weeks would lock me up for the win. However, losing a point in average could lose it for me. Should I bench this schmohawk?

Sorry to post something thats really not entertaining at all to read, but the reason they are just finding Hamilton’s fractured ribs is because in a partial fracture like he has with no displacement the rib fracture lines are not visible on diagnostic imaging. Radiographs image the body’s reaction to the stress fracture (as increased metabolic activity) which may take several weeks to become visible.

There’s a knowledge bomb.

Thanks for winning me my league Grey, I’ll be paying my rent this with my league winnings.

@Enrique: Should be the righty, but the A’s have already gone to Breslow vs. righties for a save and Ziegler’s in the mix from the right side so it’s not as clear there. Wells over FraGu… Ellis over Young unless you need steals.

So have you heard anything about Ian Stewart? He’s no longer listed as being on the DL and it just so happens my current 2b EYoungJr just got hurt. Can I play Stewart? Is that crazier than leaving eyj in for the next few days to wait and see?

@Grey: I know you don’t like Cahill very much, but for some reason he was dropped in my keeper league. He’ll cost a 22nd round pick in a 12 team league. I don’t have many pitching keepers. Should I scoop him up? He’s got to be a better keeper than Yunesky Maya right?

Start Haren v. TEX today? I had him benched, but if Ervin can shut em out, I’m thinking that Haren’s a good play.

I went to Metco for the first time on Sunday. I had a nasty cold, so my opinion of it may have been influenced by my general bad mood, but that place looks like a cross between a bank and a newer, SoCal outdoor mall. Food was outstanding, though. Didn’t hit up Shake Shack (can’t eat dairy), but Blue Smoke was top notch BBQ for a baseball stadium. Also, having been used to Petco, Metco actually appeared small. One last observation- more people attended than I have seen at Petco lately, which is just disturbing.

I’m in the finals against a Razzball reader who picked up Valencia yesterday. I’m thinking of countering with Betemit, but it’s my final move, and I’ve been stubbornly hoping Aramis Ramirez would wake up from the dead for the final two weeks for some much needed 3B power. Do I make the move? (I could also drop Tabata, but could use the steals)

@royce!: Go for it with Haren. Cool re: Metco. Haven’t been there yet, but looks without personality on TV. Food in all stadiums has come so far since I was a kid. What were you doing in NY? Business? Pleasure?

In all seriousness, it was a great time to be in NY. The weather was perfect (save for the bronado) and there are so many awesome restaurants. I lived there for a little bit a few years ago so I’ve done all the tourist shizz so I mostly just walked around and drank. Woulda been a perfect vacation had my wife and I not caught a cold.

Hey Grey! Thanks for the help all year – I’m in the finals of my 12 team leauge now and I’m going for the win. I’m eyeing Kennedy v. COL / MadBum @ Cubs for a spot start Thursday. Do you perfer one over the other?

@Grey: thanks dood. Seriously wish I could go ahead and win this thing so I’ll quit stalking you for a day or two. My offense has been anemic…no HRs (left Wright on the bench – thanks Dusty), hitting .191 and have 4 ribbies through two days. Hopefully someone figures out that the wooden club in their hand is supposed to hit that little white ball coming at them at 90+…

Luckily my opponent hasn’t done much better…besides snagging Aviles before me…he’s a damn Razzball reader, just not a commenter.

@Grey: We watched the storm from an apt that with a courtyard that was closed in on all sides, so, looking out the back windows toward the courtyard, all we could see was that it rained a lot and was pretty windy for about 20 minutes, which is common in the NE. So we had no idea how insane it was until the next day when it was all over the local news and I found that video. Later we saw some trees where they shouldn’t have been, such as on top of a car.

@royce!: At first I thought it was a goof YouTube video like the plane landing on the car. I called my family to see if they heard about it and they had and they were down in Florida this past weekend.

@Grey: Funny that they were in Florida and NY had Florida weather. Not like ha ha funny, but, y’know, “funny.”

I’m surprised that I haven’t seen more “it’s proof that God hates hipsters” jokes, since the tornado seemed to hit Williamsburg hardest. Did find a blog post claiming that ironic rock t-shirts were scattered everywhere. Sorta funny.

@Grey: I’ve always wanted to check out Florida. Once had a southern road trip all planned out but something prevented it, I can’t remember what. So at this point I’ve only flown into Florida and immediately drove to Georgia, so I don’t know anything about it. You gonna be close enough in time and geography that you could catch a potential TB playoff game? I’m gonna go out on a limb here and say that tickets will be easy to come by, at least for the first round when they’ll not be playing NY.

So I was just watching Fantasy 411 on MLB TV (they actually weren’t too ridiculous in their advice). There were a couple of questions on there that I loved, though.

1) Who is the better keeper: Tulo or Kinsler?

2) Who is the better keeper: Konerko or Zimmerman?

Does anyone honestly think that Kinsler should be kept over Tulo, in any league? Also, who the hell really thinks that Konerko is a better keeper than Zimmerman, who is 11 years his junior and plays a more shallow position?

@Steve: More food should be force fed. I enjoyed Kitchen Confidential, wasn’t thrilled by No Reservations, the book and will probably read Medium Raw at some point, but am in no rush. Reading Crime & Punishment right now, nice pick me up before bedtime.

Can someone tell me what happens in ESPN roto when you max out your starts? I see that the “P”s turn red, but it seems that the teams who have maxed out at least are getting stats from their RP. Can you no longer add or drop any pitchers, RP included? If so, and if you still get the stats of your RPs, is it best to start all RP except the one or two SP that will put you over the limit?

By the end of this post I will probably have answered my own question, but please indulge me anyway:

I only have 9 IP left before I max out. I am one save behind one guy (the fool dropped most of his closers a while ago because he thought he was safe! However he is far from maxed out), while the next guy behind me is far away.

I am also in a dead heat situation with two other guys in WHIP and ERA. In Wins, I am 2 behind one guy, and 1 ahead of another. Others might also pass me because they’re not close to maxing out. I am way ahead of everyone in Ks.

Now tomorrow I have the Adverb starting against the A’s, a virtual guarantee for good WHIP/ERA and maybe a W. BUT, that would probably mean that’s the end of it for pitchers, so no hope of passing guys in the S and W categories.

I could instead bench Adverb, hopefully collect a few saves for a couple more days and get really close to the limit in IP, at which point I can stream a bunch of starters (or at least just start Kershaw and Dan Hudson on the 25th) to try to get a few more wins, but I’d be risking my excellent ratios.

Soooo… start Adverb now to help my ERA and WHIP but give up on S and W, or sit him and use a bunch of closers + Kershaw, Dan Hudson and maybe a couple more on the 25th but risk damage to my ERA and WHIP?